by Bodie Thoene
“You are wasting your time with me.” Her eyes blazed with rage. “Whoever you are, whatever you want from me, you are wasting your time.”
He shrugged. “Would you be mollified if I were to explain that my name is Amos Tedrick and that I am an officer with His Majesty’s Intelligence Service?”
“You lack intelligence if you think I will believe anything but that you are a hoodlum. A gangster who kidnaps women.”
“Ah, well, as I thought.” He frowned and clasped his hands behind his back, rising up on his toes. “We know all about the inner workings of the violin case, you know. You have smuggled a bit of this and that?”
“Musical scores. Jewish operettas. Items to infuriate the Nazi pigs.” She let her look sweep over him in disdain.
He shrugged. “We have it all quite documented, you see. All your little travels. Berlin. Vienna. Paris. And in Paris, yes . . .” He pretended to think. “You visited our Le Morthomme, did you not? A fine fellow he was. Helpful. And you refused to help him with certain matters. A great disappointment to us.”
“Le Morthomme. The Dead Man? A curious name.” Elisa felt the blood drain from her face. Hadn’t she been warned by Le Morthomme that the organization would make certain she would not live if she pulled out? Did she know too much? Had she seen too much of the inner workings of the underground network?
“Le Morthomme truly is a dead man now, you know.” He rose up on his toes again. “Murdered.”
Shock registered on her face—too late to call it back. The fat man saw the expression and seized on it like a cat on a mouse.
“You really would be insignificant to us if it had not been for Thomas von Kleistmann.”
She did not answer as she suppressed her emotion even at the mention of Thomas.
“You know Thomas. We are certain of that.” She was quiet and sullen but he continued pacing the length of the room and back as he spoke. “There are other matters, but I suppose it will do us no good to discuss them here.” He moved toward the door. “Get dressed,” he ordered, slamming the door behind him.
For a moment Elisa did not move. She stared wearily at the powder blue skirt and blouse she had chosen to wear aboard the Queen Mary. Both were stained with diesel fuel. She had folded them and put them at the foot of the cot. Mutely, she retreated behind her curtain and stripped off the warm sweater and wool trousers. She dressed hurriedly, feeling that somehow she was about to learn what this ordeal had been about. A muddle of thoughts assaulted her. Not married! Invalid passport! Thomas involved again, and Le Morthomme murdered! What did it have to do with her? Why had she been kept here if this man was really a British government official?
This time the man named Tedrick knocked before he entered. Elisa ran the brush through her hair, although she knew she was still a disheveled mess. He stepped aside and let her pass out of the cell into a larger dockside warehouse and then through the gloom to where a shiny black limousine waited outside. She was afraid as she stepped into the automobile, but she did not show her fears. The dark interior reeked of cigar smoke. After a moment Elisa’s eyes adjusted. She gasped as Tedrick closed the door and a familiar face turned from the front seat to greet her.
“Elisaaa Murphy, isn’t it?” Winston Churchill said in his characteristic drawl, extending his hand. “So sorry about the bother. I would have done it another way myself. All this cloak and dagger business. Amos thought you might be a bit reluctant to believe him, so he rang me up.”
21
The Turtle and the Barking Dog
Just behind the quay along the River Seine was the winding little street where Thomas spent much of his free time in Paris. The rue de la Huchette ran from the place St. Michel and ended at rue du Petit Pont. The street was only three hundred yards long, but it was long enough for the decrepit Hotel du Caveau, the Bureau de Police, and three of the most famous bordellos in Paris.
Eventually, every tourist managed to wander up the rue de la Huchette. The street had been made famous by the patronage of a host of American writers who had lived in Paris during the twenties. Just steps from the stalls of the open market booksellers, it seemed to embody every cliché about the city. The police station existed in harmony with the maison de joie across the street, the house known as le Panier Fleuri, “The Basket of Blossoms.” “Only in Paris!” the American tourists would exclaim loudly.
Often tourists from every nation would enter the Café d’Eiffel for strong espresso or a glass of chilled white wine. Thomas, dressed in street clothes, took his place among a group of regulars—writers, artists, Bohemians, and exiles. They gathered in that place each evening for no other reason but to talk and drink the night away. Students of the Sorbonne often joined the ranks of malcontents. Long-legged, dark-eyed girls smiled at Thomas with sensuous mouths. They tossed their long black hair like the manes of wild horses, beckoning him closer. Chianti splashed onto the tablecloth. Art. Music. Literature. Philosophy. The politics of the day. Everything was discussed in the fluid accent of the French language, a prelude that sometimes led to talk about love. It was empty talk, as short as a stroll up the rue de la Huchette, as meaningless as a visit to the Basket of Blossoms. Yet it filled the empty hours, even though it could not fill the emptiness inside Thomas.
Two trips to Berlin had etched the German Führer’s madness more deeply into Thomas’s mind. Torchlight processions to the accompaniment of slowly tolling church bells resembled the march of dead men toward the brink of a glowing inferno. In such dark ceremonies, Hitler administered the blood oath: “I vow to remain true to my Führer, Adolf Hitler. I bind myself to carry out all orders without reluctance . . . ” As the hour tolled midnight, men sold their soul to this vow. And the whole world, Thomas knew, was drawing near to midnight as well.
Each day he had hoped for some contact from the British, from Churchill. He did not trust the French, so when a dark-eyed beauty had claimed to be allied with those opposing Hitler, he had clicked his heels and bowed and left the little hotel room with a brisk, “Heil Hitler!” He played the game well for the Gestapo agents he sensed were omnipresent in Paris. But he held out hope that at some point, as the riots in Czechoslovakia increased in intensity, the resolve of Britain and France to defend that nation would not crumble completely.
The tirades of the Führer were recorded and then shipped to various embassies around the world. In Paris, the broadcasts were played just after the evening meal, and members of the diplomatic corps cheered the vitriolic speeches as if they were boxing matches. A blow to the head of the Czechs! A crushing right to the jaw of the filthy Jewish swine! A left hook to the double-crossing French! Another blow to the Czech government of Beneš! And finally, a kidney punch to those soft-minded bleeding-heart Christians who defend the enemies of the Aryan race!
Thomas and Ernst vom Rath avoided looking at each other throughout these rebroadcasts. Both men smiled and commented on the mastery of Hitler’s latest illuminating speech. Some said Hitler had become the messiah of the German nation. Others flatly declared that he was the long-awaited embodiment of the German god.
Thomas shuddered at such words. He remembered the painting deep within the bowels of the Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler believed himself to be God. “To total victory or destruction!” he shouted.
And the voices of thousands echoed, “Hail Victory! Sieg Heil!” The voices in the embassy joined in the chant, “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
Did the others see the fear locked in the eyes of Thomas? When the horrible charade sickened him to the point of madness, he forced himself to remember the generals of the High Command. So near to the heart of this evil, he thought, how did they continue to hide their disgust?
It was still weeks before they would attempt to arrest Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, and the dreaded commander of the SS, Heinrich Himmler. How can they conceal such a plan for so long while performing their duties under the watchful eye of this satanic madman? And if these chanting thousands turned on them in the end, sup
porting their newfound god, what hope would there be? Would they not be executed as others who had already tried to stop Hitler? Would they all end up twisting on the end of a piano wire, then be hung on meat hooks for display?
The weeks since the bookseller Le Morthomme had been murdered had been a jumble of fear and questions. Why Le Morthomme had been eliminated had been easy to understand. The man had been the main contact between the German Abwehr and the British for years. But who had killed him was a matter of concern for Canaris in Berlin. The British had not wanted him dead. The only reasonable conclusion was that he had been snuffed out by Himmler’s Gestapo. If that was the case, however, why hadn’t Thomas been arrested? And why not Ernst vom Rath?
The elusive answer to this puzzle had left Thomas in a sort of purgatory. Like a turtle facing a barking dog, he had pulled in his head and arms and legs for fear of having them lopped off by the Nazis. Incredibly, nothing had happened after the shooting. The bookseller had been given a proper Catholic burial. There had been no arrests in the matter. Indeed, the young assassin had melted into the back alleys of Paris and had not been seen since. Perhaps someone had paid him off for his act of treachery against the bookseller. Although Thomas held the belief that the bullet had been meant for him, he did not tell anyone. The entire matter had been dropped. The incident had been swept under the rug of French bureaucracy. Only now Thomas slept with a loaded gun under his pillow—just in case the matter surfaced again. Just in case one of the dark-eyed French girls who smiled at him from across the terrace at the Café d’Eiffel happened to carry a loaded gun in her handbag.
***
It was a long drive back to London, but it was late and the highway was deserted except for the limousine.
Churchill held up the glowing stub of his cigar. “Mind if I smoke? Makes my secretary sick.”
Elisa did not answer. Relief had been replaced by outrage. “You are supposed to be a friend of my husband!” she said accusingly.
“I had nothing at all to do with this,” Churchill scowled. “Guilt is by association only, I assure you. And now, if Amos will kindly drop me at the mansion house at Chartwell, I shall settle with him later.”
“We were quite uncertain of nearly everything about you,” Tedrick said in defense. “Four days ago we discussed arresting you on a charge of espionage and murder.”
“What?”
“Hear me out, if you please,” Tedrick continued.
“Ridiculous!” Elisa sat forward angrily. “You deliberately held my husband back. Kidnapped me. Dragged me to the warehouse—”
“And if we had approached you with John Murphy at your side?” Tedrick asked. “What might he have done?”
“Every newspaper on Fleet Street would have had the story.” Churchill muttered.
“They will have it soon enough!” Elisa snapped.
“That must not happen.” Tedrick sounded thoughtful, almost apologetic. “That must never happen.”
“One wire to Murphy and—,” Elisa began.
“And a lot of people will die,” Tedrick finished.
Churchill chuckled and eyed Tedrick. “No doubt John Murphy would start the massacre with you, Amos.”
“There is some method to this madness.” Tedrick sniffed and looked pained. “We might not have paid one whit of attention to you if it had not been for Herschel Grynspan.”
Elisa gasped. “What does Herschel have to do with this? He is a child. A boy. His father was a tailor for my father in Berlin.”
“Yes, yes. We know all that. A long-standing connection.”
She did not attempt to hide her confusion. “But what has Herschel to do with anything? I have not seen him in nearly two years.”
“We thought you might have seen him last month. In Paris.”
“Herschel? In Paris?” Gradually it came back to her. The old tailor had sent his son to Paris. To an uncle or some relative. The boy had spoken of wanting to attend the university there, and then going on to Palestine.
“You do not deny that you have connections with him?”
“Well, no. I mean yes, I do not. I . . . I can’t quite imagine Herschel mixed up in—”
“Yes. He is quite mixed up. Yes, Elisa, quite. We believe it was he who murdered Le Morthomme, you see. There is some speculation that he might have meant to kill another.” He shrugged. “Regardless, surely you see the significance of such an event to us. Surely whomever he was working for understood how the death of such a man would cripple our communications with certain elements in Germany who are not, shall we say, favorably disposed to the Führer.”
Elisa frowned and gestured helplessly. From the beginning she had guessed the significant role Le Morthomme must play as a contact between someone like Otto in Vienna and the British Intelligence Service. The strange little bookseller had been an important link for many government agencies in Europe; she did not doubt that. But how could a boy like Herschel have any connection with such matters? And how had she been tied to him? “I—” she paused—“Until today I was not even aware that Le Morthomme had been killed.”
“Indeed. By whom, we are uncertain.”
“You said Herschel.”
“Yes. We think he held the gun and pulled the trigger. But we had another meaning when we asked who was behind it.”
“Ask Herschel.”
“We have attempted to do that. We have been to the house of his uncle in Paris. The boy has simply vanished. But he left behind a sheaf of love letters to Elisa Lindheim, addressed to the Musikverein in Vienna. All returned to him unopened.”
“Oh, Herschel!” Elisa felt ill. Maybe it was the reek of the cigar smoke. She leaned her head back on the seat and stared at the back of the chauffeur’s head. “What have you done, Herschel?” she whispered. Then she eyed the now-sympathetic Tedrick. “I have nothing to do with this. You must believe—”
“We were hoping you might fill in a few missing pieces.”
“In Austria I used the name Linder. Not a Jewish name. I have held a Czech passport since 1936. My father thought I would be safer that way. To a point he was right—of course, you know that too. Herschel was nothing more than a frightening annoyance. I never saw the letters he sent to me. A very wise and discreet friend returned them to Paris to discourage him from writing. I was Linder in Vienna, not Lindheim. I had Czech nationality until I married Murphy—which you now tell me was not a marriage at all.”
Churchill turned to glower at Tedrick. “You could have left that detail out, at least, Amos!”
Tedrick shrugged off Churchill’s disapproval. “There is one more piece of this puzzle, Elisa,” he said almost gently.
“Please, tell me. I need to understand this.”
“Thomas von Kleistmann.”
“Thomas? Yes. He is in Paris.”
“You know he has relayed some information to us through Le Morthomme.”
“No. I did not know. But Thomas is no Nazi.” She frowned. “How did you find out I knew him?”
“The Gestapo has a file on Thomas. The name Elisa Lindheim, Jewess, is quite prominent in their file. His file was photographed by one of our own agents when we were checking the authenticity of von Kleistmann’s offer to help us.”
“Then you know he is a good man. Suspected by the agents of Himmler, yet tolerated because of his father and the High Command.”
“You are in love with him?”
“Once . . . I was.” The question brought a flush of shame to her cheeks. She was grateful that the car was dark so they could not see. She could only guess at what had been in that file.
“He is quite important to us.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“He is as unsure about the reasons for Le Morthomme’s death as we are. He is a frightened rabbit. Afraid of his own shadow.”
“Then his shadow must be the Gestapo.”
“We tried to make contact with him. He is not sure—”
“Which side you are on,” Elisa finished for
him.
“Quite right. Just as we have been unsure about you.”
“And now that you are convinced I did not put Herschel up to the murder of Le Morthomme, will you let me go? To America?”
The car pulled up to the mansion house before Tedrick could answer. Churchill turned to Elisa and took her hand briefly. “A beastly business,” he scowled. “I am sorry Tedrick here had to resort to such tactics. Good night.” He touched the brim of his hat and slipped out without a word to Tedrick.
Tedrick resumed the conversation after they were underway again. “It is not so simple as all that.” He snapped on a light and presented her with a thin folder from his briefcase.
Elisa opened it, surprised to see the American visa requests of her father, mother, and two brothers. Each was stamped Denied. She stared at them in disbelief. Why had they been refused? And now what were they to do? Was Murphy already aware that the applications had been turned down so soon?
“Mama,” she whispered, “what are we to do now?”
Tedrick cleared his throat and switched off the light. “Rather stiff about allowing Jews to immigrate to America, you see. Officials there have invoked the immigration statute about foreigners becoming a public charge. Or taking the jobs of citizens already there. They leave very little room for anyone, you see.”
Elisa held the folder in her sweating hands. She could barely speak. “Why . . . did you leave me those newspapers to read?”
“We thought you might be interested in the American sentiment. No use fooling ourselves, now, is there? It is as bad there as it was in Germany in the beginning. If you are set on running from the Nazis, America is not the place to run. John Murphy will not be able to pull the necessary strings to get your family through the immigration barriers, at any rate.”
“What are you telling me?” Elisa asked wearily. All she wanted was straight answers. This man seemed incapable of that.
“We are quite prepared to offer you and your family British passports.”